Wood pallets used for the storing, shipping and handling of goods are recycled for use but frequently are damaged in use and require repair. U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,746, assigned to the assignee of the subject application, illustrates an apparatus for facilitating the inspection of used pallets and sorting of the inspected pallets for recycling, repair or rejection from further use. That apparatus, while reducing greatly the manual handling of the pallets being cycled, still required manual handling during the inspection process which increased the transit time of pallets through the apparatus and was physically fatiguing.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide an improved apparatus that reduces the necessity of manual handling of pallets during their inspection and speeds the movement of pallets through the sorting apparatus.